The Man Who Invented The Computer Password Admits That It's Become A Nightmare

Between the massive Heartbleed bug that was discovered in April, and numerous password breaches, the most recent coming from eBay, it's clear that there are some serious problems with the password.

As it turns out, the man who invented the computer password back in the early 1960s agrees.

In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, 87-year-old Fernando Corbato said that the password has become "kind of a nightmare."

Unfortunately it's become kind of a nightmare with the World Wide Web. I don't think anybody can possibly remember all the passwords that are issued or set up. That leaves people with two choices. Either you maintain a crib sheet, a mild no-no, or you use some sort of program as a password manager. Either one is a nuisance.

Corbato went on to say that he probably has about 150 passwords that he's accumulated over the years. Passwords, according to Corbato, aren't "a super-high level" of security, but are enough to prevent others from casually snooping through your data.

The other major issue with passwords, according to Jonathan Klein, president of Usher, a company that works on mobile identity solutions for enterprise, is that they're vulnerable by nature. As Klein explained in a previous interview with Business Insider, sending any type of critical information to another server, such as a password, makes it susceptible to hackers.

Even Corbato, a former computer science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has engaged in poor practices when it comes to keeping passwords safe.

"I have to confess, I used to use a crib sheet," he told the Journal. "I don't think I'm guarding any great secrets."